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December 2002

Dream AnatomyVisit this web site for a special holiday treat! "Drawn mainly from the collections of the National Library of Medicine, Dream Anatomy shows off the anatomical imagination in astonishing incarnations. The books, illustrations, and sculptures span A.D. 1500 to 2002. `What many people might not realize, is that art, and the artistic imagination, have always been an essential part of the science of anatomy,´ says NLM's Dr. Michael Sappol.

Health Services and Sciences Research Resources (HSRR) is a searchable database of information about research datasets, instruments/indices as well as software applications. used in health services research and in the behavioral and social sciences. It includes brief descriptions of research resources and links to PubMed and URLS of providers for additional info.

SUGGESTION BOX:

From our Suggestion Box:

The Library should serve continental breakfast every 2nd Saturday.Sounds like fun - But, the Library has a policy of no food or drinks (except for covered drink containers).

Also, Purchase Recommendations for the following were submitted:

SIMBRYO The library will look into purchasing this additional CD for the collection when it becomes available early in 2003.

Interactive embryology the human embryo programThe library has multiple copies of the CD.

STEDMAN'S ELECTRONIC MEDICAL DICTIONARYStedman's is available online from StatRef, (QUICK LINK or TEXTBOOKS page). You´ll find additional dictionaries on the Reference Desk and Authors & Teachers Internet Guides. We also have print copies of several Medical Dictionaries for use including Stedman's, Tabors,etc,….

MERCK MANUAL ILLUSTRATEDMerck Manual of Diagnosis & Therapy is available online through the Library's subscription to StatRef. The Textbooks page contains links to several Merck editions. Merck Manual of Diagnosis & TherapyMerck Manual of Medical InformationMerck Manual of Geriatrics

November 2002

Calories in a Portabella? Fat in a BigMac? Download the free USDA National Nutrient Database for Palm OS PDAs for nutrient content of over 6,000 foods. "Unveiled in October at the American Dietetics Association's annual meeting in Philadelphia, the new database downloads to a desktop computer in just about 30 seconds from the USDA Web site http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp. The transfer to your handheld will take longer and you will need at least 1.5 megabytes of available memory on your handheld computer. The program is not compatible with Microsoft's Pocket PC operating system. The program is a slimmed-down version of the comprehensive USDA list. But you probably won't miss the more technical aspects, such as listings of grams of individual amino acids. Instead you can focus on the more relevant basics: calories, carbohydrates, protein and fat (saturated, mono-unsaturated, polyunsaturated), cholesterol and sodium as well as vitamins and minerals for every food in the USDA list." Washington Post October 22, 2002. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49709-2002Oct18.html

Attention IDEALAlert Subscribers! Academic Press IDEAL journals are now available on ScienceDirect. This means that IDEALAlert will stop at the end of this year. You can continue to receive email alerts on your favorite IDEAL titles thru the ScienceDirect alerting service. To register for ScienceDirect alerts, available for over 1,500 journals on the platform, visit http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/alerts. Registration is easy, so sign up for ScienceDirect alerts today! Alternatively, Elsevier Science also offers ContentsDirect, which delivers tablesofcontents alerts for Elsevier Science journals. Register for ContentsDirect at http://contentsdirect.elsevier.com/

October 2002NEW AVs The AV Dept. now has 6 circulating copies of the popular Acland's Video Atlas of Human Anatomy and 1 copy on Reserve.New NCME video titles are:Heart Failure: from trials and guidelines to quality careAsthma in ChildrenTreatment adherence: how to improve patient complianceRural medicine, today and tomorrowAn update in neoclassic diseases: renal cell carcinoma, testicular cancer, and tumors of the central nervous system

FreeMedicalJournals site now offers sorting by subject , language, and title, as well as highlighting free journals with high impact factors. There is also a mailing list to alert you as new free journals are added to their list. There is a permanent link to the site on the E-Journals page. There are currently 970 titles that allow some sort of free access, most often to issues older than 6 months, one year, or two years. The major titles adopting this giveaway approach are highlighted on the home page.

CancerTrack links to over 2,000 authoritative sources on cancer. The News section is updated every 15 minutes. Check out this site, Cancer.gov, Oncolink, and other sites from the Clinical Information Resources Internet Guide, section: Cancer.

Seeing, Hearing, and Smelling the World – "entertaining and informative" site brings the visitor through a series of articles explaining the human senses and how they link to the brain. Educational Resources Internet Guide, section: Sensory System.

MEDLINE journal citations from 1957 are now accessible in OldMEDLINE from NLM´s Gateway website. For some 30 years, researchers have had online access only to literature published after 1965. In the last few years, NLM has added nearly 104,000 citations to the Gateway site. To search subjects in this file, use key words and text phrases rather than the MeSH thesaurus and controlled vocabulary. As with other MEDLINE databases prior to 1975, no abstracts are available on OldMEDLINE

August 2002MedCases Following positive response to trial access by students in the third year clinical clerkships, and requests for access from PCOM residents, PCOM has expanded MedCases licensing to all PCOM students and residents.

MedCases is a collection of simulated patient encounters presented in a case-based format in the areas of Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Obstetrics/Gynecology, Pediatrics, and Surgery. With each case, the student or resident acts as the treating physician to solve the case using history and physical exam information from the patient's medical files.

The learner works through four case elements: 1) Determination of the differential diagnoses, 2) Selection and interpretation of laboratory and diagnostic tests, 3) Identification of the final diagnoses, and 4) Determination of the course of treatment. Performance on each case element is evaluated and scored on the basis of the clinical choices made, and scores are compared to the optimal score that could be achieved.

Online feedback and assessment are provided as MedCases offers expert evaluations at key points throughout the case. To self-register, go to "Quick Links" on the PCOM Library Home Page and click on MedCases

New Academic Year Welcome! The Library staff extends a warm welcome to new and returning students. Occasionally, we hear the disturbing comment that students hesitate to "interrupt" staff. Please remember that is why we are here!

We are happy to assist you in any way, and welcome your comments and suggestions. You may use the forms on the Services and Request Forms page to send purchase recommendations and interlibrary loan requests electronically. There is also a Suggestion Box on the Library Circulation Desk. We look forward to hearing from you.

New Link on Textbook pageBooks at NCBI contains titles in genetics, molecular biology, microbiology, and immunology. This National Center for Biotechnology Information collection of electronic books is freely available to the public. Titles include Modern Genetic Analysis, C. elegans II, Developmental Biology, Immunobiology, Introduction to Genetic Analysis, Genes and disease, Molecular Biology of the Cell, and Retroviruses.

New PsycARTICLES TitlesAmerican Journal of Orthopsychiatry, Journal of Psychotherapy Integration, Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, Crisis: Journal of Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention, European Journal of Psychological Assessment, Journal of Psychophysiology, Swiss Journal of Psychology, and Experimental Psychology have been added to the collection.

July 2002Principles and Practice in Manual Medicine by Patrick Coughlin, PhD, Professor of Anatomy. Churchill Livingston 2002 "Principles and Practice of Manual Therapeutics provides comprehensive coverage of the full array of manipulative techniques and their therapeutic applications to common and un-common diseases and/or syndromes. PPMT deals with the most commonly used forms of manual therapeutics. The book is an overview of the principal manual therapies practiced worldwide, the theories and rationales, and practice algorithms, with contacts and resources for further study" (from Elsevier Science web site). Dr. Coughlin´s book includes chapters on Osteopathic Medicine and other western systems, as well as the asian manual systems Shiatsu, Ayurvedic, Qi Gong, and Tui Na. It is available in the PCOM Bookstore.

An online resource for information on complementary and alternative medicine is EBSCOhost's recently upgraded and expanded Alt HealthWatch™. This database focuses on the many perspectives of complementary, holistic and integrated approaches to health care and wellness. Alt HealthWatch™ contains full text articles from more than 170 international journals, reports, proceedings, and association & consumer newsletters. In addition, there are hundreds of pamphlets, booklets, special reports, original research and book excerpts

Welcome, Stephanie! Stephanie Ferretti joins the Library Staff as Associate Director. She comes to us from Temple University Health Sciences Library where she was Associate Director for Technical Services and Systems since 1997. A native New Yorker, Stephanie earned her BA at SUNY Cortland, and her MLS at Queens College. Her leisure activities include golf and gardening. She will be a wonderful addition to our staff.

June 2002PALCI - PCOM is a new member of PALCI (Pennsylvania Academic Library Consortium), a federation of 35 public and private academic libraries. PALCI's web gateway allows simultaneous searching of member library catalogs. Some members include Bryn Mawr, Carnegie Mellon, Drexel, LaSalle, Penn State, St. Joe's, Temple, and the University of Pittsburgh. Conduct a search, and PALCI returns a consolidated list of all titles, sortable by author, title, or publication year. Even more exciting, PCOM library users can directly initiate requests for most items found in PALCI, and have them delivered to the PCOM Library. If you wish to initiate requests (rather than going through Inter-Library Loan), logon to PALCI using the LIB# in the lower left hand corner of the PCOM ID card. If you have a problem and received an "invalid patron ID" message, call the Circulation Desk at 215-871-6470 and a staff member will verify the LIB# (problems have been noted with older or replacement IDs). Pick up and return of PALCI books is at the PCOM Library.

Academic Press IDEAL UsersElsevier has purchased Academic Press. Beginning May 25, 2002, titles formerly found in Academic Press IDEAL are in Science Direct. From an Elsevier press release: "Throughout the remainder of 2002, customers licensed to both IDEAL and ScienceDirect are receiving complimentary access to their subscribed Academic Press journals on ScienceDirect. This will allow many users to explore the sophisticated functionality available on the ScienceDirect platform. For customers of both IDEAL and ScienceDirect, we have attempted to match our customer records from the two systems in order to set up this complimentary access. However, our mapping may be imperfect. If you notice that your IDEAL entitlements [titles you previously had access to in IDEAL] are not reflected in your ScienceDirect account, please contact your Library (library@pcom.edu) to have the situation [investigated and] rectified.

May 2002OVIDWebEffective May 6, 2002, Library users will see a new OVID interface OVIDWeb. It has a new look, more databases, and additional searching capabilities.

A new resource is Clinical Evidence, a monthly, updated directory of evidence on the effects of common clinical interventions, published by the BMJ Publishing Group. It provides a concise account of the current state of knowledge, ignorance, and uncertainty about the prevention and treatment of a wide range of clinical conditions and summarizes the best available evidence.

The new OVIDWeb search interface looks and behaves very much like the previous version. There are, however, some notable new features:

Improved currency of resources including the 400+ fulltext journals linked from OVID MEDLINE to Journals@OVID

Integration of MEDLINE with OVID Evidence Based Medicine Review databases (Best Evidence, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and the new Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness and Cochrane Controlled Trial Register)

New OVID Online search software enhancements such as the ability to search multiple OVID databases concurrently and to save and re-run searches.

Both on campus and off campus users will continue to authenticate using their MIS network accounts. Follow Quick Links to OVID Databases and E-Journals or MEDLINE.

Free Decision Rules for Palms

InfoRetriever's InfoRules for PALM contains clinical decision rules and calculators, with new rules added every month. Each clinical decision rule includes important information about the population, setting, and type of validation. More for the Palm is promised by Fall. Pocket PC users can already download the entire resource. Don't use a PDA? Search InfoRetriever on the Web from the Library Quick Links.

Take the InfoRetriever Tour to find out more about this unique EBM resource.

MD Consult Survey

MD Consult is one of our most heavily used resources, and especially popular with busy clinicians. In January, MD Consult conducted a survey of a random sample of users. After adopting use of MD Consult, respondents reported dramatic improvements in their ability to find answers to difficult clinical questions and to keep up-to-date with current medical information. Overall, more than three quarters of those responding ranked MD Consult as effective or very effective in supporting daily patient care with information resources.

Timesavings, in particular, dramatically increased with the use of MD Consult, with nearly 70 percent of respondents saying that it typically takes less than ten minutes to find answers to difficult clinical questions. Before using MD Consult, over 70 percent indicated that it typically took from 30 minutes to 24 hours or more to find such answers. Nearly half of the respondents estimated that MD Consult saved an average of 1-3+ hours per week in finding answers to clinical questions.

April 2002Quality graphics - for your presentations. The Netter Presenter CD contains over 900 customizable images taken directly from Netter's Atlas of Human Anatomy. Interactive features include 4-way search, editing, user notes, and labels. WIN/MAC compatible. Available at the Loan Desk.

PDA Internet GuideThe expanded guide provides links to sites with information on hardware, general and medical software, reviews, buyers' guides, and a bibliography. Increasingly, students and clinicians are using these devises to track patients, record patient encounters for teaching, research, and billing purposes, download Web content with Avantgo, access reference textbooks and drug databases.

New Annual Reviews Web Site Features"Reviews in Advance" (RIA) are full-length reviews published online immediately after full editing and revision. Reviews can appear online up to 7 months before they appear in print. PCOM holdings include Annual Reviews of: Biochemistry, Biomedical Engineering Biophysics and Biomolecular StructureCell and Developmental BiologyGeneticsGenomics and Human GeneticsImmunologyMedicineMicrobiologyNeuroscienceNutritionPharmacology and ToxicologyPhysiologyPsychologyPublic Health

March 2002Full text from BlackboardAssigned readings? Journal club? The latest article on a hot topic? Yes! You can create direct links from your Blackboard courses to specific full text articles in many of our e-journals and e-journal collections.

Some individual journal web sites and e-journal collections provide persistent urls for articles [MD Consult is one]. For these, all you need do is cut and paste the bibliographic information for the article and the article-specific url into Blackboard as an External Link.

For other collections, you must construct a url combining the PCOM ezproxy url for each resource collection with a direct article link. Sounds difficult but it's not.

Easy as 1, 2, 3! Proxy address + journal address + article address

You will find detailed instructions on how to construct the composite url in Linking to Electronic Journal Articles [Documents section of Web-Site Development (FacDev100) under Special Topics & Projects in Blackboard].

February 2002OVID titles increaseUsers now have access to an additional 140 fulltext clinical titles. These titles from Lippincott Williams & Wilkins brings the total of fulltext journal links from OVID MEDLINE to over 250 titles. Use TDNet to view our current holdings, search Tables of Content, and set up current awareness searches tailored to your interests.

New Videos from the CDC(PCOM video call number at the end of each the title)Anthrax--What Every Clinician Should Know VC-01280CDC Responds: Clinical Diagnosis and Management of Anthrax- Lessons Learned VC-01281CDC Responds: Coping with Bioterrorism-The Role of the Laboratorian VC-01283CDC Responds: Bioterrorism and the Healthcare Epidemiology/Infection Control Team VC-01282

Other New Videos from NCME: The Aging Eye and Timely Interventions: Part 1 VC-01788The Aging Eye and Timely Interventions: Part 2 VC-01789Update on Multiple Sclerosis: Diagnosis, Treatment, and Management Part 1. VC-01790

The National Library of Medicine has created a web site of Reports of the Surgeon General. Topics include smoking, AIDS, obesity, youth violence, drunk driving, disease prevention, and health promotion. A link to the site has been added to the Internet Guides page.

Scientific and Medical Aspects of Human Reproductive Cloning - The National Academy Press report's panel is jointly composed of the National Academies Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy (COSEPUP) and the National Research Council Board on Life Sciences (BLS). Five years removed from original discussions about the bioethical implications of Dolly the sheep, the panel assesses human reproductive cloning in light of scientific advances since then. Legal, medical, and scientific literature informed the panel, as well as testimony of experts that both support and defend a ban on human cloning.

January 2002MEDLINE SearchingHone your search skills with our updated and revised OVID MEDLINE Tutorial. The permanent link to the Tutorial will reside on the Guides and Tutorials page.

Fewer Science Direct TitlesEffective January 1, 2002, Science Direct has been reconfigured into a total of 16 separate collections with individual price tags. The total price for all collections is prohibitive and many times greater than what we currently pay. Fortunately, SD provides excellent usage data that Library staff reviewed on a title-by-title basis to identify those resources most valuable to PCOM users. To view a list of our revised Science Direct holdings, use the Collection Limit in Journal Search. And remember, the interlibrary loan service is available to provide access to articles in seldom or little used journals.

Faculty of 1000 Trial ContinuesThe Library has arranged free access until the end of January 2002 to this new online research service for biology. Please advise the library if you believe this service would be of value. According to the publisher, Faculty of 1000: provides scientists with a continuously updated insider's guide to the most important papers within any given field of research, offers the researcher a consensus of recommendations from well over 1000 leading scientists, systematically organizes and evaluates the mass of information within scientific literature, and offers an immediate rating of individual papers by the authors' peers. And remember to send comments to the Library at library@pcom.edu